The Arizona sentinel., 1887-04-09
PRACTICAL JOKING.
The Gross Way in Which the Allege HumOr of Englishmen Manifests Itself

lnO SEOSS way III WHICH lhb <AAACSCN
 Humor of Englishmen Manifests Itself
 The worst of English humor is that it is so apt to take practical form. Practical joking is generally con sidered, except indeed, by the un- fortunate victim, the cream of English fun, and is tolerated in England to an extent that seems to a foreigner in- credible The abominable form of practical joking is undoubtedly the hoax, and during the last few years hoaxing seems to have been on the in- crease. It was only a short while ago that lively gentleman in one of the London suburbs was fined five pounds for sending telegram to a friends wife to say that that friend had seriously injured Himself by burns and had gone to the hospital. Never was penalty better deserved; and the culprit's ardor for practical joking will probably have cooled con siderably by this time. A still more senseless and cruel hoax was perpe- trate short time before, when a man was informed that Newcastle gentle man whose life he had once saved had left him an estate worth thousand a year. Needless to state, the message was untrue. A still grosser case was the Liverpool hoax of last winter, when an advertisement was inserted in the papers fora large number of working men to help in preparing the EXhibi- ton grounds, all candidates for em- ployment to bring spades and pickaxes. There were a great number of men out of work in the city: crowds of them streamed out to the exhibition site, many of them having purchased, out of the remnants of their savings, the re- quired tools; and when, after a weary walk, they reached the ground, they found the whole affair was a hoax. Gan consciousness and barbarity in so-called practical joke go much far ther than this.
 Of a more harmless kind was the Downing street hoax of last July, when several furniture vans from different firms arrived-so it was said-at MT. Gladstone's official residence shortly after his resignation, to remove ''old collars, hats, coats, and similar eff fects;" such, any rate, was the object named on the postcards they had re- ceived.
 It is tolerably well known that for an undergraduate to be abroad in the evening without cap and gown is an offense agalnst the laws of his uni versity, and if detected in his trans gression by the proctors, the offending Cantab or Oxonian is invited to call on the proctor next morning to make a modest contribution to the university finances. In case he does not respond to the invitation with sufficient alacri- ty, form is filled in requesting him to attend without delay. In 1881, at Ok ford some evil-disposed person pur- Joined a number of these forms, filled them in, and sent them to some sixty or seventy undergraduates; and the scene on the proctor's staircase next morning may be better imagined than described.
 But perhaps the most notable hoax of recent years occurred about two years back. An American cotton plant CT in the Southern States had, it was reported, after years of fruitless at tempts, succeeded in crossing the cot ton plant and the okra, a species of hemp. The result had exceeded all ex- pectations. The new plant bore only one blossom, of large size, of fra grance similar to the magnolia-pink at first and gradually fading to white. When this fell off, its seed-vessel swelled and swelled; till at last, when ripe, it burst and re- vealed a large mass of cotton at least two pounds in weight quite free from the troublesome seeds, which | which were at the bottom of the pod. | The account was copied from one paper into another; showers of letters came | beseeching the lucky planter for few seeds, and it was confidently predicted | that the cotton industry would be revo- lutionized. The Standard and other | English newspapers devoted leading | article to the new discovery. And | after all this discussion, it turned out | that tle whole affair was the invention | of some waggish Southern editor at a loss for a subject in the holiday season. | -ChGnlberS' Journal.